For many years, Malaysia has recognized the importance of holistic education. In the national education strategy, Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025, the government identified not only knowledge, but also thinking skills, leadership, ethics, and spirituality as key attributes that every child needs in tomorrow’s economy and globalized world.
Schools across the country organized activities such as sports competitions, reading programs, greeting campaigns, school cleaning initiatives, and leadership camps to nurture these qualities. However, these efforts often reached only selected pupils and were not embedded across entire schools. As a result, the full transformative potential of such activities remained untapped.
The Ministry of Education, Malaysia recognized that Japan’s educational practices, particularly Tokkatsu (special activities), offered valuable insights into how to embed holistic development systematically within school life. This led to the launch of the JICA Technical Cooperation Project, “Project for the Promotion of Holistic Education,” targeting primary and preschool education.
Asia SEED, in partnership with the University of Tsukuba, was selected to implement the project.
The project’s Malay name, Memperkasakan Amalan Kemenjadian Murid, means “Empowering Practices that Foster Pupil Growth.” Its acronym, MAKMur, signifies “prosperity.” The initiative began in 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: at a time when resilient, self-motivated learners were needed more than ever.

Malaysia is a richly multicultural society, with different types of schools serving different ethnic communities, and strong regional diversity. Recognizing this, we did not seek to introduce rigid new activities. Instead, we designed a clear and adaptable educational model that enables each school to strengthen its existing practices autonomously, according to its own context.

The MAKMur model is built upon three core principles:

• Learning Through Experience
• Self-Motivation
• Equal Opportunity

These principles are implemented through a spiral process:
Goal → Plan → Act → Reflect → Change → (Repeat)

Activities aligned with this model are called MAKMur Activities.

Even if an activity appears similar on the surface, it is not considered a MAKMur Activity if pupils merely follow teacher instructions passively or if only a small group of selected pupils participates. True MAKMur Activities integrate all three principles and place pupils’ autonomy at the center of their own learning.

– Class Goals Before and After MAKMur Implementation –

Teachers set educational goals based on pupils’ developmental stages. They design, implement, and reflect on pupil-driven activities that embody the three principles, carefully observing the changes in their pupils.
Pupils themselves set goals, take action, and reflect on their growth.
In this process, teachers act as facilitators of the activities, supported by headmaster/headmistress and middle leaders who promote MAKMur within the school.
In primary schools, pupils’ discussions became central. In preschools, learning through play was emphasized. Over time, MAKMur Activities were embedded into as many aspects of daily school life as possible including regular classroom lessons.
To support nationwide expansion, we developed guidebooks for schools, collections of discussion models, and implementation guides for state and district education officers in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. An online campus was also established, providing training opportunities and a platform for knowledge exchange.

Throughout the development process, pilot schools worked closely with us, repeatedly testing and refining MAKMur Activities. Using a mixed-method research approach – combining surveys and interviews – we examined the impact on pupils’ development and the transformation experienced by teachers.
The results were clear.
Introduction of MAKMur Activities significantly improved pupils’ non-cognitive skills, as demonstrated through before-and-after comparisons in both pilot and control schools.
Behind this improvement, we observed profound changes:

• Learning shifted from teacher-centered to pupils-driven.
• Pupils developed greater initiative and engagement.
• Teachers gained confidence, patience, and flexibility in their instruction.

A powerful interaction emerged between changes in teaching practices and the strengthening of pupils’ competencies.
As pupils rotated and shared leadership roles, every pupil gained self-esteem and participated in collaborative learning. This created a virtuous cycle: pupil-driven learning fostered further growth, which in turn reinforced pupil autonomy.
Moreover, MAKMur Activities were shown to:

• Increase study time at home
• Reduce ability gaps among pupils

– The outcomes of MAKMur were also evident in succor games –

Survey findings were not only used to demonstrate effectiveness. They directly led improvements to the guidebooks and strengthened advocacy for nationwide expansion.
Through structural equation modeling, we identified how school management system contributed to enhancing pupils’ abilities and incorporated these findings into the guidebook. We also found that when parents recognize the importance of developing non-cognitive skills, pupils’ growth accelerates – an insight that further reinforced our advocacy efforts.
A defining feature of this project is that its major components were designed and implemented on an evidence-based foundation.
After confirming the effectiveness and significance of MAKMur, the Ministry of Education decided to incorporate this model into the forthcoming national policy framework, the National Education Blueprint 2026-2035. The MAKMur model will be integrated into pupil learning across the Ministry’s initiatives.